Access control apparatuses are used in various respects, for example to control the access of persons to rooms in a building, as is the case in hotels, office complexes or laboratories, for example, to events or even, in an abstract form, for functions, resources or services, for example of computer functions or computer resources or server services.
One specific application of access control apparatuses is also formed by control of the access of persons to openings of containers, such as e.g. safety deposit boxes or goods delivery containers, particularly of parcel boxes. Parcel boxes allow a novel form of delivery/pickup of parcels for persons who wish to receive or send parcels at or in proximity to their residence even in their absence. To this end, parcel boxes are usually installed in front of the residence of the parcel box user—in a similar manner to a mail box, but with a greater receiving volume—and parcels are then delivered by the delivery agent by placing them into the parcel box or are picked up by removing them from the parcel box. In order to prevent misuse and theft, the parcel box needs to have a lock. Both the delivery agent and the parcel box user then need to be equipped with physical or electronic keys in order to be able to use the parcel box. The electronic keys may be stored as data records, for example, on what are known as tokens, for example on mobile telephones or RFID tags.